Author Archives: Mark Wilson

The Wooster Geology Department has started the 2015-2016 school year during beautiful late summer weather. Above is the traditional first-of-the-year image of the Geology Club. Everybody is happy to be a geologist. Here are 12 of our senior geology majors … Continue reading →
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At the beginning of my Invertebrate Paleontology course I give each student a fossil to identify by whatever means necessary. I challenge them to take it down to the species level, and tell me its age and likely place of … Continue reading →
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Every year our Administrative Coordinator Patrice Reeder masterfully assembles the Annual Report of Wooster’s Geology Department. Every year this document grows in detail, creativity and information. This year’s report is now available at this link. The Annual Report is our … Continue reading →
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ORRVILLE, OHIO — The First-Year Seminar course I teach at Wooster is called “Nonsense! (And Why it’s So Popular)“. It is ostensibly about exploring irrational ideas in human society, such as astrology, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, quack medicine, the “paranormal” and … Continue reading →
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This week’s fossil is a celebration of classes beginning again at Wooster, and a memory of excellent summer fieldwork. It isn’t especially attractive, but it has paleontological significance. We are looking at a broken surface through a thick oyster from … Continue reading →
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It is sometimes hard to believe that exquisite fossils such as the above are sometimes very common. The above is a theca of the blastoid Pentremites godoni (DeFrance, 1819) found in the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) of Illinois. (Thanks to expert … Continue reading →
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The shard above doesn’t look like much. It comes from a specimen far too large for us to excavate, let alone pack onto a plane for the trip home. Here’s a view of one of the full specimens still in … Continue reading →
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LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 10, 2015) — I know, such a cliché image, but you know it had to happen on this trip. This morning Andrej Ernst and I packed up 78 pounds of bryozoan-rich Silurian rocks and mailed them … Continue reading →
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LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 9, 2015) — This was the last day in the field for Andrej Ernst and me. We met all our goals (collecting bryozoans from the Rochester Shale, finding sclerobionts anywhere, and learning more about New York … Continue reading →
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LOCKPORT, NEW YORK (August 8, 2015) — Andrej and I began some deep collecting of Silurian localities in the Lockport area today in our survey of the bryozoan and sclerobiont faunas. The sites are, shall we say, not the most … Continue reading →
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